


Duct Rat

by 8bitalien (rocknrollalien)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: AU, Backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-04 01:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4121176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocknrollalien/pseuds/8bitalien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Original pre-game profile that comes to effect Shepard's life and choices throughout all three games. In this story, Shepard is not a colonist, earthborn, or a spacer--she's a duct rat, born on the Citadel, homeless, used to traveling through the ventilation systems and getting by the best she could. Additionally, rather than being a Sole Survivor, Ruthless, or a War Hero, she's Disobedient; having gone against orders to sabotage a well-defended batarian bunker and ultimately winning the day. Eventually, she'll get together with an otherwise non-romanceable crew mate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nine

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Service History-  
> Duct Rat: Orphaned at a young age, you grew up with other Citadel trash and castaways in the ventilation systems and ducts. You became a fierce protector of the other children, learning how to fight and swear with the best of them. When you were finally too big to fit in the vents, you enlisted in the Alliance at the age of 18 so you could send credits to the other homeless children you left behind.  
> Psychological Profile-  
> Disobedient: As a part of your military career, you and a large unit of soldiers were besieging a batarian base after repeated raids on human colonies. After it was determined that the batarians were too well entrenched, and were to keep receiving back up from other ships, your entire unit was ordered to withdraw. Instead, you "borrowed" a shuttle and crept down to the base, sneaking in as a single soldier where an entire squad would be immediately detected, and sabotaged the batarians' communication systems, effectively cutting them off from all outside support. The batarians, without food or ammunition, surrendered days later, and you escaped a court martial based on the success of the mission.

She’s nine years old, and she’s lean. Cocked head, mouth slightly ajar, and too skinny and too tough for a kid, she’s holding the hand of a smaller, skinnier kid, and squinting at the Relay Monument in the Presidium. Black-brown eyes blink up at it, as if trying to come to some conclusion, until a tiny hand in a tiny hand yanks.

“What’s this?” is the question. Not a genuine query, not wanting to know about the Protheans, but an expression of impatience, distaste, lack of appreciation for art.

Jannali turns to look at the kid who asks with disdain. Then she looks at the other five kids who are tailing her. She’s not the oldest, but she’s the toughest. She knows it. They know it. 

“I like it,” she says. She drags her free hand through dirty hair, it tangles and coils and comes to her shoulders. It would be longer, if she hadn’t found a knife about two months ago. She’d cut the hair of every kid who wanted less hair. Some who had tangles so bad they couldn’t drag fingers through it, and didn’t want less hair, too. “It makes my teeth tingle.”

“Your teeth are tingling because Tommy punched you in the jaw,” a tall kid says, laughing.

She whirls, dropping the hand of the little one to look at the tall kid. She comes to his chin, but she puffs up as big as she can, all spitfire.

“I’ll make your goddamn teeth tingle until turian spirits are inspiring freakin’ stars in your eyes!” she says, cracking her fingers like she’d seen off-brand VIs of vid stars do. 

He backs off, and she throws her head back, victorious.

Jannali snatches up the hand of the little one, and drags it along. “You’re my goddamn flock, ain’t you?” she says, calling over her shoulder as the other kids scramble to keep up. “Well get in the herd! We’re on a field trip outside the vents today, and we’re gonna have some fun!”

Mischief lights up the girl’s face, and excitement spills over her followers. It’s not often that they leave the Wards, even those that still have parents. Only their Shepherd take them to other places, through the vents to avoid C-Sec’s probing eyes and stern boots. Presidium tours lead by Jannali the Shepherd meant dips in the lake, or climbing on the Krogan, or running with muddy feet through the Consort’s chambers and watching the ensuing chaos.

A gap toothed grin on a lean, dirty child leads a train of dirty, grinning, skinny children. It draws looks. _Good._


	2. Fourteen

She’s 14 years old, and she’s bleeding from a cut on her face. She smears the blood out of her eyes, wincing away from the pain, and squinting to try to see more clearly.

A larger kid, a girl of about 16, knocks her to the ground before she can see properly. She gets back up, laughing and spitting, like she always has, and takes a swing at the bigger girl’s head. It’s unprofessional, untrained--a loose swing, wild and unwise. Still, the bigger girl is slower, and it connects with the side of her head.

As her opponent lies on the ground, struggling to stand with Jannali’s boot on her gut, the Shepherd wipes blood out of her eyes once more.

“You’d be a fucking tyrant, wouldn’t you?” she says. She’s not aware of it, but she’s glowing, just slightly.

She kicks the other girl in the face, and turns away. A young boy picks up the hat she’d been wearing. It had been knocked off of her head in the tussle. She puts it on his head instead, and grins. More children, her age and younger, flock to her. She’ll be too big soon, but she doesn’t think about that.

“Shep,” one of the kids says, tugging at a finger. “We don’t have food.”

She nods. 

Big and small, the children climb through a grate into a ventilation shaft. It’s greasy, and the only other people they plan on encountering are more of their kind, or keepers, but with Jannali in the lead, they know they have a plan. It’s rumored she has a map memorised of the vents, and knows where all the fans are. It’s rumored she knows when the moneyed people flush out the vents, expelling trash and children alike into the void. It’s rumored that joining her flock will keep you safe, even if she barks at you or fights with you, because she hates the idea of others hurting her flock, even on accident.

A half hour’s clamor and the children are in the Financial District.

“Stay,” she orders, and _stay_ they do.

She’s dirty, and barefoot, with scrapes and scabs and the cut over her forehead is clogged with dust. Her clothes are too small and she’s still too skinny. Being tough doesn’t matter in the Financial District. She’s just old enough that people start to notice her, start to suspect her, even if they aren’t C-Sec. Someday she’ll have to give this job to a littler one, but for today, they’re out of food, and she’s the goddamn best.

Jannali the Shepherd, fourteen years old, has no family. She has no money. She hardly has food to eat, and when she has it, she gives it, because what the hell else is she going to do, let a four year old starve to death while she gluts herself? She lives in vents, in ducts, in places people forget to check for vagabonds and miscreants, with a herd of other children. She does what she must to survive.

Right now, that means standing in line, conspicuously, waiting to access an automated bank terminal. Her fingers twitch against her thigh, remembering the code sequences, and her mouth is slightly open as she remembers that she must breathe. Looking natural is not a concept she’s heard of yet in her short life.

One person left in front of her, an asari in a long gown and outrageous shoulder pads, and she will be breaking apart pieces of code, gleaning what credits she can, and spending them on food for the flock.

She steps forward to claim her time with the terminal, and a three-fingered hand closes around her skinny arm. She’s pulled, forcefully, away from the terminal as a sharp yelp escapes her mouth. A snarl forms on her lips as she turns to face the C-Sec Officer who attempts to restrain her.

Jannali is made of whirling dust, writhing to escape the strong hands of the Security Officer who suspects. She twists and jabs, lifting her bare feet and bringing them down sharply on his boots. She bites and scratches, and screams and tears. He does not move, and she remains anchored by his hand on her wrist. His mandibles flap in frustration, and she spits in his face.

“You barefaced sonofabitch let me go!” she snarls, trying to pull away.

“I’m taking you in, brat,” he says, the dual harmonics of his voice setting her teeth on edge. She hisses like a mad cat. “You’re old enough to be processed,” he claims, before looking her up and down. “Probably.”

She does not know if he’s telling the truth or not. Her shoulders slump, and she goes limp. He has to carry her to processing, and she knows that her flock will go hungry while she bides her time.


	3. Seventeen

She’s 17 years old and she’s glowing. It’s becoming a problem, honestly. Spurts and bursts of this biotic bullshit pouring from her central nervous system and out through her fingertips, the top of her skull. She’s glowing because she’s angry.

A C-Sec Officer is a bastard no matter what amino acids he can digest, she has just decided. A man named Harkin sits across from her, his face fading from a cocky grin to an expression of slack-jawed terror. The chair in which she’d been pushed into for the course of the conversation had been pushed back when she’d stood, and now was floating behind her.

_Biotic bullshit. Sexist asshole. Fucking C-Sec._ These words whirls in her head at the speed of her hate, and she wonders if she could use this fuckhead superpower to crush Harkin’s head like a grape. 

“I steal because I’m protecting people!” she screams. “I break shit to keep people safe!” the chair began lowering to the floor, shuddering in the air as the hazy blue light flickered around it. “What about you? Do you like being a pervert because it feeds your family?” 

A door opens behind her, and the fear of being overwhelmed and outnumbered by armed C-Sec Officers drenches her very bones and blood. Every trace of blue leaves the room, and she’s no longer a powerful being of destruction and vindictiveness. Now she’s a scared, sweaty, tired girl who has just been propositioned by an adult man who has legal authority over her. Even like this, her black eyes are wide and wild and her hands are curling into fists.

“What’s going on in here?” asks the turian who comes in, pistol in hand.

She’s scared, but she’s not sorry. Her face challenges every other person in the room to fight her. She is still small, still too skinny, although she’s now too big to fit in the vents. But she has scars from fights won, and she has fists.

“You can’t protect me, and if you’re gonna protect that barefaced cloaca, you’re not worth as much as the fish in the lake,” she said, spitting on the floor. 

Not for the first time, racial politics play into the decisions of those made around Jannali. The turians take her out of the room, giving Harkin decidedly dirty looks, and let her off with a “warning.” 

The girl is tired, but victorious. A victory against C-Sec. 

She takes a step out of the C-Sec office, a vague swagger coming into her step, onto to be immediately approached by two humans in uniforms. Her stance switches to defensive instantly.

“A message was sent about your biotic display a few moments ago,” one begins to explain. She is a tall human woman, in her 50s or thereabout, who is trying not to notice how dirty Jannali is. “It’s lucky you were in C-Sec when all that started to happen, or you could have really hurt somebody, and it would have taken a lot longer for us to find you.”

A grimace settles onto her face. “What do you want from me?” she asks, her voice low. She wonders if she can call up some of the biotic energy she was threatening Harkin with, but her bones ache with exhaustion from even such a short display. 

“We’ll fit you with an L3 implant so you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else, and let you go...home,” says the other. He pauses slightly before ‘home’ and it is clear that they all know she had nowhere to go. Nobody cares that much.

“You won’t take me away?” she asks, feeling the tentative fingers of relief growing through her body.

“I’m afraid we can’t offer housing--” the man begins, but is cut off.

“Good. Let me control this. I can use it.”

The woman smiles, and offers Jannali a pamphlet. “Yes, you can.”


	4. Eighteen

She’s 18 years old, and her eyes are firm as she looks ahead. Her hands shake slightly as she offers her sole form of identification, given to her less than a month ago. A biotic registry is no birth certificate, but she knows it will do. The pamphlet said it would. A holographic version of her face glows in front of the recruiter, and her name is beneath it.

Jannali Shepard.

She doesn’t remember her family, and doesn’t know if she ever had a surname, and doesn’t much care. The Duct Rats are her family, they are her flock, and she knows this in the fullness of her heart. When the man and woman who had fitted her with an implant had asked for her name, she had provided her first name with a sullen unease.

“Jannali,” she had said. “It means moon.”

“And your last name?”

She had paused. She had thought of her flock. With a proud lift of her jaw, she told them her name was Shepherd.

“Spell that for us, won’t you?”

Here, she’d paused. She’d never attended school, that she can remember. But she knows her letters and numbers decent enough. It’s survival. But ‘shepherd’ isn’t a word she’s seen before, or had to know. So she’d made a guess.

She passes from checking in with the recruiter to the physical. 

“Where did you get this scar?” the attendant asks, only mildly curious as she’s measuring Shepard’s weight and height.

Shepard glances at the scar she’s referencing. It’s across her shoulder, where she’d nearly slid into a blade fan as a ten year old. It had ripped apart her shoulder, cleaving the flesh from the bone, and it took all the strength in Shepard’s body to pry herself out of the death trap and away. She only survived because of her flock. Otherwise she might have have bled out. They had gotten her to a clinic, paid the human doctor in favors for the next six months. And she lives.

“I got it on the Citadel, where else?” she responds, smiling at the attendant.

“Oh, you were born here?”

Shepard shrugs. How would she know?

The rest of the enlistment process goes on without a hitch, besides the attendants raising some eyebrows at Shepard’s scars--some are more recent than they might be accustomed to--until Shepard is sat in front of a “counselor.”

“Jannali?” asks the counselor. He’s a younger man, only about 30, and he smiles from behind a mustache. He stumbles over her name as he reads it, unsure, uneasy. “Can I call you Jane?”

“No.”

“Right. Shepard, then!” He laughs as if he’s made a joke, and she raises an eyebrow. “You have...no record of existing beyond a few months ago. You’re in pretty good physical condition, a little malnourished maybe, and it looks like you’ve been in some scraps, haven’t you?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” she says. Slowly, she adds, “Sir.” She’ll have to get used to that.

“Look,” says the counselor, taking off his glasses and looking at Jannali as though he has sympathy to offer. “I know there are homeless kids on the Citadel. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, kid. Are you joining up just to get a place to sleep?”

“I’ve got a family...sir. I set up a bank account proper, and I’ll be sending creds here whenever I get pay. The flock--the kids, I mean, will be getting paid.” She doesn’t lie, but she doesn’t feel the need to tell him that she’s too big for the ducts, and she needs to protect them somehow. After the implants, this seems the best way.

“You have children?” he asks incredulously.

“In a manner,” she replies, and a mischievous grin lights up her face. 

The counselor looks at her for a moment, his glasses half on his face and half in his hands. He doesn’t know what to make of her, or that mad smile. _Good._


	5. Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this point on, I won't be using present tense or using numbers for chapter titles! Both were kinda confusing for me, and I only planned on using them as a device for her childhood. Now she's an adult I can write in my usual style.

She sat at the mess table, legs crossed in the small chair, hands dragging through regulation short hair, wondering. There was a coffee in front of her. It was space-coffee, different than Citadel coffee, and it was weird for her to not have to worry about having an allergic reaction kin to being poisoned from picking up a cup of joe. She drank it laced with as much sugar and cream as a person could bear, and swiftly--you never knew when it would be knocked out of her hand.

But now, the coffee sat in front of her, growing rapidly colder, and she wondered.

Her hair was bushy when it was clean, and usually bound in a ponytail that looked like a bun. But with the frantic fingers running through it, it had come free, and hung around her face like a black halo of frizzy curls, occasionally getting mown back by one of her hands.

“Well, aren’t you busy?” laughed Private Hannah Grace, sliding into a seat across from Shepard. “You look like shit.”

“Ah, fuck off,” Shepard said, laughing.

Grace reached over and grabbed Shepard’s coffee, taking a sip before recoiling in horror at the luke-warm over-sugared mess in her cup. She slowly pushed the cup back toward Jannali, shuddering.

“What would I do if I actually fucked off, then?” Grace asked as Shepard grinned at the show of disgust. “Sit on my bunk and think about Blasto? We’ve got nothing to do, nothing to prepare for. It’s you, Blasto, or bust.”

Shepard laughed, and swiftly bound her hair back in a stubby ponytail. She was tempted to ask who the hell Blasto was, but knew it would derail things and turn this into a bull session instead of anything productive. 

“If you’re bored, I’ve got an idea,” she said, struggling to wipe that god-forsaken grin off her face. Everybody on the SSV Tokyo knew to run when Jannali had that grin. It was even worse if she were holding her pistol, or a lot of tape. So she kept her face neutral, or tried to. The corners of her mouth twitched in disobedience of her direct order, and she leaned forward before she lost total control. “I know how to hit the batarians where it hurts.”

“Oh no, what’s this?” Grace asked, leaning away from Shepard’s enthusiasm. “If this isn’t a lesson on how to locate a batarian’s dangle bag and shoot him there, I’m not sure I’m going to like this.”

Despite her words of protest, Hannah Grace’s face betrayed her. Shepard lifted her eyebrows. Grace bit her lip. Shepard waggled her eyebrows. Grace glowered. Shepard grinned, letting all hell break loose on her face. Grace couldn’t help herself, and a smile started forming on her face.

“Batarians are one of the few aliens I’ve never accidentally seen naked, you know,” Shepard said, leaning back in her chair. She unfolded her legs, pulling her knees to her chest. “So that’s not quite the plan I have in mind.”

“Shit, Shep,” Grace said, but there was laughter in her voice. “You have to let me in on this.”

“This is why you’re my best friend!” Shepard declared.

“Am I now?”

Shepard leapt out of her seat, and moved to sit on the table across from Grace. She scooted the coffee out of the way, and pulled up a map on her omnitool. It showed a base of some kind, with red triangles denoting points of defense along the outer perimeter. Grace looked at the orange map briefly, but she looked back to Shepard almost immediately.

“I’ve seen this a thousand times. Better get innovative,” she warned.

“I’d show you the levels in there, but we’ve got nothing. They’ve got scramblers interfering with scans, and they keep getting air-drops in specific locations and those locations keep changing so we can’t stop them,” Shepard reviewed, spinning the map with her free hand. It whirled, representing her frustration. “What does this tell you?”

“It tells me that I’d rather be taking shore leave on Elysium right now, because this mission is pointless,” Grace replied.

“Which tells _me_ that you’re not very creative, Private. They’ve got communications going in and out, and it’s fucking us over. They’ve got limited supplies, but keep getting more. So what happens if I shut off the lights?” 

“They can’t see?” Grace offered. Shepard opened her mouth to explain, but Grace waved it off. “I know what you mean. They can’t get messages out to their helpers, and we can suddenly scan, right? Problem being, we can’t get a ship down there without getting shot to pieces.”

Shepard smiled. It wasn’t her maniac grin, it was a soft thing. “Luckily, ships have got lots of pieces, huh?”

“What the hell does that mean?” Grace asked.

Shepard turned off her omnitool and walked away, that soft smile still on her face. As she walked, her smile grew to a grin, and she knew what she could do. She couldn’t get court-martialed if she _won_ , right?


	6. Celea

She flicked on the controls, and the shuttle shuddered into wakefulness under her hands. Lights came on, the shuttle warmed, and as she shut the door, it sealed. A genius in engineering, despite the dents from high impact rounds being fired at it in days gone past. She crossed her legs in her seat, and grasped the throttle. 

_It’s time._

From the outside, a single shuttle leaving a ship like the Tokyo wouldn’t be notable. In fact, if a human’s eyes could even pick it up, it would be more impressive that the human had such good eyesight than that a single shuttle had departed. A streak of faint blue light, and more void. Just a sleeping ship.

On the inside, however--

“Evans, did the bay doors just open?” asked a soldier.

“What?! Bullshit, they shouldn’t have done that. Do we have a deserter or a malfunction?”

“Which is worse?”

“Close the doors, check the bay, and see if any are missing. I’d rather have a dumb new recruit trying to piss off in a batarian controlled area and see how far that gets them than have our ship be possessed, okay?”

Alarms went up when it was discovered that the shuttle was missing. Deserters have never been treated kindly by a military force, and in the middle of a stand off with enemy forces? Who knew what this potential traitor could cost them. 

Not a defector, not a traitor, not even deserting for the fun of it, Shepard landed her “borrowed” shuttle some meters away from the batarian base. She kept her gun holstered, and crept through the densely forested area surrounding the square black stone base that had been thwarting the Alliance for weeks now.

Their sensors were tuned to ships, shuttles, and tanks. They were expecting a bombardment of undue force. A single soldier went under their radar, like Shepard had been doing her entire life. It took her twenty minutes of walking around the base, ducking out of the line of sight of any batarians who had skipped out for a smoke break, and trailing her hands along the rough hewn walls until she found an entrance that suited her.

A vent. What else would it be? She nodded her head, and hoped that turian spirits, or the Asari Goddess, or...whoever...was watching over them while she was gone. What’s a flock without its Shepherd?

She took the covering off of the grate with ease. 2000 years of having ventilation in buildings, and they still hadn’t updated how to cover a vent entrance, she mused. It worked for her. She crawled in, but not after making sure she had a pistol in hand. If she fell out of a goddamn duct, she would not do it unarmed. Dropping into a room full of batarians as a human in the middle of a raid sounded unsavory enough, but unarmed? Not an option.

The vents were smaller than she’d like. They weren’t built for the Citadel, and she was bigger than she’d been even when she’d enlisted. ‘Muscle mass changes a person,’ she’d told her successor on her last visit to the Citadel. She’d been carrying three kids on each arm as she’d said it, and laughing. She was...healthier, now, that was true. But she’d be lying if she ever said she didn’t miss the rats. They taught her everything she knew.

Which included, at this point, how to drop out of an airduct virtually undetected in a room with too many glowing lights to be food stores. 

“Goddess protect those who design ventilation systems,” she murmured, grinning at the communications array.

One step toward it, and the door slid open. She dropped down so she was below eye level, hidden behind a table laden with tech. 

“Tonight’s dinner was garbage. Tell them to bring something better this time,” said one batarian.

The other seemed unamused. “We’ll eat fine enough when the humans get off our backs. Any day now.”

As they spoke, Shepard crawled along the back of the table. She reached up, and grabbed a wire. Slowly, carefully, quietly, she unplugged it. She held her breath. No electronic shriek greeted the change, and she let the breath go. 

The batarians checked the scanner, tuned the scrambler, and bickered amongst themselves for a good half hour, pulling up chairs to sit in the comm room. One was firm on a menu change, while the other insisted that they didn’t even need to call for another airdrop. Shepard moved silently, unplugging some cords, and plugging others in in the wrong places. She tied wires together in some places, frayed others to the point of almost breaking with her boot-knife in others. When she was satisfied with the damage she’d done, she wished she could whip out her omnitool and scan it, see how well or poorly it was working--but the orange glow would betray her. 

So she sat back on her heels and waited. To keep herself on edge, she recounted what she knew about this base.

It was called Celea. The batarians had been using it to hide human colonists they’d taken as slaves, and wait for the heat and panic to pass to continue on their way back into batarian space. It was small, only big enough for one ground-level story, but the Alliance assumed that it must have sublevels of basements in order to contain their would-be slaves and supplies in order to last for a siege like this.

As it turned out, they did have sublevels. And they did use it to contain slaves. By the time the Alliance had gotten to Celea, however, it had been cleaned out of “merchandise” and stuffed with guns. The batarians were thoroughly entrenched, and with airdrops coming in to provide them with food and more batarians any time the Alliance was able to actually take out a ship trying to leave or enter the base, it seemed as though the batarians would win the day.

“Why do we only keep a few day’s food on hand? I wanna snack and I’ll get shot for fucking supplies,” said one batarian, piquing Shepard’s interest. 

“Because shits like you don’t like the menu!” growled the other. “Look at this base, will ya? You can’t store anything besides people in the slave cells, and we’re too full on guns and men to handle a packed kitchen, too. So just don’t stuff yourself, idiot.”

The first batarian’s omnitool beeped, and Shepard’s heart beat faster. Was it an alarm? Was he being alerted to her presence? She reached for her pistol.

“We’ve got duty in another room. Let’s get outta here. The lights hurt my eyes, anyway.”

The two batarians stood, stretched, and left. Once the door was shut, and all sounds ceased but for the inconstant beeping on the scrambler, Shepard stood. She looked at the board, and was pleased to see that many of the lights were flickering irregularly, and many had gone dark. For good measure, she kicked in the scrambler, which seemed to be wireless, and climbed back into the vents.

An alarm blurted moments later, and batarians poured into the room. Shepard thought about swearing aloud, then thought about swearing under her breath, and then just thought better of it in general. Silence was key. She held still, and waited. If she were ten years younger, she might have been able to slip through the vents undetected above their very heads. As it was, the movement would make too much noise. It had been too long since she’d been in a vent.

It seemed that kicking in the scrambler had been the final straw. Minor malfunctions weren’t worthy of alarm, but active sabotage...well. They scrambled around to look at the wires, and were appalled at the state of things.

“Has it always looked like this back here?” one asked, and Shepard was glad that she was too scared to laugh, or she would have been in worse danger than she already was.

The batarians began pointing fingers at each other, accusing one another of betraying the group. After all, if a ship had landed nearby, they would have known. A smile grew on Shepard’s face. _At least I’m cleverer than a batarian_ , she thought. The shouting match escalated until they were pulling guns on each other, and someone else had to intervene, escorting everybody out of the comm room to figure out the identity of the traitor.

A slow breath escaped Shepard’s lungs, and she crept forward, pistol in hand. Now all she had to do was talk the Captain out of taking her to court for stealing a shuttle and disobeying orders. And, of course, the batarians would have to surrender. Without food, they were done for. She grinned as she escaped Celea, and flitted through the woods back to the shuttle. 

Before flicking on any switches that would get her airborne, she paused. They’d likely have eyes to the sky for a while yet, and it was dark over this little planet. Tail lights could get her caught.

She settled into the pilot’s seat, yawned, and shut her eyes. It’d been awhile since she’d had to sleep upright, but she certainly hadn’t forgotten how. 

Jannali dreamed of stars, as she always did.


	7. Anderson

Her salute was so cocky, with that god forsaken grin stretched from ear to ear, that the officers weren’t sure if it counted as insubordination or not. In the briefing room of the SSV Tokyo, there were 4 officers in addition to the Captain in charge of the mission, and they were all looking at Shepard. 

The trial was, of course, several days after she’d been tossed in the brig to think about what she’d done, but given that the warship had little else to do while they played cat and mouse with the batarians, the Captain had called for her trial a little earlier than protocol would normally dictate. After three days of rotting in a cell, somehow Jannali Shepard’s spirits were not dampened.

“Private Shepard, you’re here on trial for desertion, disobeying an order given by your superiors, stealing Alliance property--”

“How are the batarians doing, sir?” she asked, interrupting the officer who listed her crimes.

“Speak when spoken to, Shepard,” the Captain said. His patience seemed thin, and he didn’t quite trust that shit-eating grin.

“Sorry sir. I was just wondering if any advancements had been made. Also, uh, I deny the desertion charge,” she said, and crossed her arms behind her back. 

“If you weren’t deserting, what were you doing stealing a shuttle and sneaking off?” an LT asked, drumming his fingers on the table.

She grinned. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon, if you can wait. It’s more fun that way, I’d think.”

The Captain looked like he might laugh, or at least chuckle, but he didn’t. A curious smile seemed to be about to spring forth, however, and Shepard was counting on it if she was going to keep being a smart-ass.

“You do realise, Private, that that could sound like a threat?” the Captain asked, his voice definitely teetering toward amusement.

“It’s a threat to the batarians, maybe. I’ve got no ill intention toward the Alliance, and no fondness for batarian slavers. Particularly not ones that have thwarted our efforts long enough to give me such a headache.” Her words were sincere, but she knew they wouldn’t believe her until something came of her self-appointed mission. “I did what I did for a damn good reason, and you’ll note that the shuttle doesn’t have a scratch on her.”

“Why did you come back?” a sergeant asked. 

“To report my success,” she replied with a wink.

“Don’t play games with us, Shepard. You didn’t have orders to go to Celea last night, so we don’t know what the hell you did unless you tell us,” the Captain told her.

“Fine, I’ll ruin the surprise. Captain Anderson, last night I went down to Celea in order to--”

“Captain, there’s a distress call coming from Celea. It’s patchy, but it’s coming from right in front of the base. From the looks of things, all their defenses have been shut down.” The intercom interrupted her telling of the tale before it got going, and she laughed with delight.

“Go see what they want!” she goaded. “I bet it’s good!”

“Open communications with them,” Anderson ordered.

“I tried that already. Either they’re not picking up the phone, or their systems are down, because all I’m getting is static.”

“Did you do this, Shepard?” Anderson asked.

“They’re out of food, I bet. I went in and pulled all the cords out of the wall, kicking in a scrambler or two, so they couldn’t call for more airdrops. If you go in with a tank, just to make sure they’re not going to try to kill us and eat us, I bet you a court martial that they’ll surrender,” she said, babbling excitedly.

“So if this is a trap, you’ll go quietly?” he asked.

“But if it’s not, I’m off the hook. You can’t try me for winning the day, can you?”

“We’ll see about that, Shepard,” Captain Anderson said, chuckling to himself.

She was thrown back in the brig while others got to reap the spoils of her hard work, but she didn’t care. She sat back on her cold metal bunk and whistled a happy tune. As hours passed, however, spikes of dread began to grow in her stomach. Her whistle died on her lips as the third hour passed. She stood up at three and a half. Jannali Shepard was not one to wring hands, but she crossed her arms behind her back and stood at the front of her cell, alert for messengers. It was as close as she could get.

The sharp tap-tap-tap of her boots as she paced was what greeted Captain Anderson when he came to see her. He was lead into her cell, and Shepard opened and closed her mouth exactly 4 times in confusion before she saluted.

He looked at the cell, and looked at her as she stood there. Despite her concern, despite her submissive posturing to the Captain, her brown-black eyes were wild and defiant as she stared at her superior officer. In the overly-bright light of the cell, she was still considerably darker than Anderson himself, and one of the few soldiers in the Alliance to actually retain any significant racial features rather than becoming vaguely khaki like the rest of the human race. In Shepard’s case, she was visibly an aboriginal australian, somewhere along the line. Anderson wondered if that’s where the name came from. 

“I’ve just been looking at your file,” Anderson said.

“Enlightening reading material, I hope. Did it keep you so long?” Her voice was clipped with anxiety, betraying her concern.

“There wasn’t a whole lot to read. You only list one parent. A mother, Avina.”

Shepard chortled. “That’s correct, sir,” she replied, the memory of her cleverness easing her own stress.

“So you didn’t have parents, didn’t have anyone to tell you what to do growing up, I take it. It’s reasonably common in the Alliance, though not a lot of Citadel kids join up. I’m guessing you’re not used to taking orders, but you are used to surviving,” he said, his voice softening as he speculated aloud. 

He moved to sit on Shepard’s metal bunk, and her eyes tracked him.

“Everybody survives,” she told him. “They have to.”

“True words, Shepard. The batarians surrendered, as you predicted.”

Her face, which had been pulled into a grim frown, split into a grin. She dropped out of form and turned toward him, everything in her body language displaying how eager she was for news. 

“You’re kidding! Why am I still in here then?”

“Shepard what you did was reckless and damn foolish,” he snapped. “Initiative is good. Creativity is good. Going off on your own without bringing your idea to someone else is ridiculous. What would have happened if you’d gotten killed? If it hadn’t worked? What if you’d gotten captured and they tortured Alliance secrets out of you? You had no backup, which is stupid.”

Jannali Shepard, for once, did not know what to say. No snappy reply, no insult, no explanation. “I’m sorry, sir. Am I going to be court martialed after all?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave you a medal.”

“What? Why would they do that? I disobeyed commands and--” she stammered.

“Because I recommended you for one, Shepard. Don’t let it go to your head, kid. If it gets any bigger you’ll breach the hull.”

He left her, and she followed. She tried to look meek, but her smile was just as disobedient as the rest of her, creeping across her face until it was glowing in full force. She’d won.


	8. Secretary

“It looks like I just can’t get away from you as my CO, huh, Anderson,” Shepard said, leaning against the wall of the mess hall. 

Anderson was coming out of his quarters on the Normandy, likely about to climb the completely impractical number of stairs required to get to the CIC, but Shepard had ambushed him. She had her sickeningly sweet coffee in hand, and a grin on her face. He paused, and raised an eyebrow at her.

“It seems that way, doesn’t it Shepard? But don’t spend all your time on the Normandy harassing _me_ , mind. There’s some crew that you’ll want to meet before we leave the Citadel,” he told her, and walked away, chuckling ominously.

She sipped her coffee, thinking about what he’d said. Then, impatient, she gulped down the rest of it in a throat-singing display of strength. She crushed the paper cup and chucked it in a bin in one fluid motion, and stalked over to the elevator.

Crew she should meet? By order of the Captain? She knew that now that she had her N7 rank, she could definitely cozy up to whoever she wanted and they’d be impressed, so was there really a need to seek anybody out? She mulled over who she’d already met on the ship since boarding.

There was Joker, who she was already fond of. The pilot struck her as somebody who was trying very hard to hide things with silliness, and like somebody who wouldn’t survive a day in the vents without her help. He was too...nice. If push came to shove, he would want to sacrifice himself for everyone else, most likely. Noble, but stupid. She liked it.

Next, she thought about Engineer Adams. The thought brought a smile to her face. She remembered working with the engineer on the Tokyo, when she’d first been assigned to the ship. She hadn’t had a lot of friends, and talking to so many humans at once without the pretense of training, so she’d taken her lunch by the engines. The two of them had had more bull sessions than Shepard could properly remember, and the resulting camaraderie had had her galloping down to the engines as soon as she heard he was aboard.

She supposed Anderson could mean Lt Alenko, who she’d only greeted briefly, but she knew that she would be getting to know Alenko on ground missions, so it seemed unlikely that Anderson would make a point of directing her to him.

The elevator arrived on the bottom level of the Normandy. She strutted out, about to turn on her heel and check out the engines for the 30th time, when she paused.

A turian, all done up in red and black, was sitting at the weapon’s bench. A turian. An incredibly well armored turian, at that. She walked closer, and noted that this turian was also of the handsome variety. 

She slapped him across the back, resulting in the rifle in his hands clattered onto the table.

“Been a long time since I’ve been arrested by C-Sec,” she said, putting an arm over his shoulder. “I think that was the last time I saw a turian in an unexpected place.”

He looked at her, and his expression was more amused than she would have expected. “Have a history with law enforcement, do you?” he asked. “Interesting.”

She pulled up a seat next to him, and put her feet on the table. “More than some, less than others. Why, are you a cop?”

He chuckled to himself, almost reluctantly, and Shepard raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t remember a time when a full grown turian laughed at her jokes. 

“I’m surprised your CO hasn’t briefed you,” he replied. 

“He briefs me on lots of things. You know, this ship is a turian-human hybrid. Does that mean we’re getting a turian-human hybrid crew?” She grinned. “That’d stick in Nav Pressly’s craw.”

“He doesn’t like turians?” 

“Gotta love a blatant racist, yeah?”

The turian laughed again, and she laughed with him. She genuinely thought she was the most hilarious, when it came down to it.

“You’re Commander Shepard, right?” he asked. “The saboteur of Celea, born on the Citadel...sound familiar, or am I talking to the wrong human? You all look alike to me.”

She grinned. “Yeah, we could do with some clan markings, right? But yeah, you must be better at faces than you think. I’m Jannali Shepard. You’d better give me a name or I’ll just call you C-Sec until we part ways, buddy.”

“It’s good to meet you. I’m Nihlus Kryik, and I’ve never worked for C-Sec,” he told her. 

“That’s a relief, at least. I was wondering if you recognised me because you’ve arrested me before and I just forgot about it. Usually I don’t forget faces like that, but when I was a kid I didn’t see much of a turian past their hands and guns, so it’s possible.” There was a moment of silence as the two regarded each other. “What are you doing on the Normandy, Nihlus Kryik?”

“I’m looking out for the Council’s interests,” he said. There was a coy look to him, as if that meant something other than what she thought, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Her interest was piqued. 

“What, so you’re a clerk?” she laughed. “Lot of armor for a secretary, don’t you think? And that…” She leaned forward, getting into his personal space to look at the weapons in front of him. “Is a pretty big gun.”

He laughed again, and she felt that it was a victory. “I’m a Spectre, Commander. The Council sunk a lot of money into this ship, so I’m coming along for a shake down run.”

She crossed her arms across her chest, and leaned back once more. “That’s the official story. Spectres don’t do jack shit unless it involves violence, or they’d send a proper secretary.” She was dissatisfied with his answer, and could tell from the nervous flapping of his mandibles that he was hiding something, but he was amused about it. An idea struck her, and her grin spread across her face like wildfire. “Unless you’re both? Specretary?” 

Nihlus stared at her as she laughed so hard at her own joke that her eyes began to tear up. He watched as she cackled to the point of nearly falling out of the chair she sat in, and gasped for breath. When sense restored itself, she grinned at him, as though waiting for a response.

“Specretary,” he repeated back to her. “That’s an interesting thought.”

“What? That’s all I get out of you? Don’t tell me you’re a stick in the mud, Nihley. I was just starting to enjoy your company!” 

“Nihley.”

“Yep. You can come up with a nickname for me if you want, but Nihley’s gonna last forever,” she told him, and pushed his shoulder. “I’m gonna go make some lunch before the ship takes off. I hope you brought your own supply of dextro!”

With that, she up and left, too curious about this Nihlus and too amused by her own hilarity to check in with Adams. Either that turian wasn’t a Spectre, as he claimed, or this wasn’t a shake down run for the Normandy. Both ideas were a little exciting. If he could lie well enough to get past the Captain, he’d be an interesting ally, no matter what the outcome of his stay on the Normandy was. 

She was interested in him. _The first friendly turian I meet is a liar_ , she thought, amused. _How fitting._


	9. "Interesting."

Shepard could do more pull ups than almost anyone on the Normandy. With little to do on the three-day sojourn from the Citadel to Eden Prime, she challenged any person with two arms to a competition. They looked at her, looked at her record which showed a special interest in tech and a reasonable proficiency in biotics, and thought that she’d be as sissy as Lt Alenko. Every single person she challenged took her up on it, except Joker. 

Alenko was out after 20, but stayed to watch as she demanded that someone else take her on. Jenkins hopped up, and dropped at 23. He laughed at himself, and joined Kaidan in the spectator area. A few other crewmen tried, some managing 30 or 40 against Shepard, but she still hung on longer than anybody, grinning all the while.

“And they call this a military ship,” she said, dropping down from the pull up bar and stretching her arms. “I could do another thousand!”

“Somehow I seriously doubt that,” came a droll voice. “I bet you’re already tired.”

She turned and snarled at Nihlus, whose subharmonics were easily recognisable on a human ship. He was positively smirking. 

“I bet you’re already a pussy,” she said, baring her teeth in something between a challenge and a smile. “Get over here and try to do a chin up.”

“You really want to challenge a Spectre?” he asked. He was toying with her.

“I’m not challenging a Spectre, I’m challenging everybody. You think you’re better than us? Prove it,” she said, jutting her chin out.

He sauntered up to the bar. It was already at his chin with him standing naturally. It was entirely over Shepard’s head but almost two feet. He looked down at her and smirked again. She growled low in her throat, and grabbed the bar. 

“Fine. Let’s do this.”

Nihlus’s words prompted hooting from the gallery, and the two of them began plowing away at pull ups. Jenkins helpfully kept count for Nihlus, while Kaidan took over for Shepard. They both started off strong, but, as could be expected, after almost a hundred pull ups in a row before challenging Nihlus, Shepard began growing weaker. She struggled to keep yanking herself up. Nihlus was still breezing through when he hit 50, and it was only his apparent ease that kept her going past her breaking point. 

She remembered being twelve, and having a young turian boy dangling from her fingertips. He’d slipped, and was just a foot away from being all of the flesh of his tiny body cleaved from his bones. The only thing stopping him from a grisly death was Jannali, and her arms shook as she tried to hold him. Their hands were sweaty from contact and panic, and she couldn’t, despite all her effort, pull him any closer to her. So she held him there, and talked to him.

_Someone will come along_ , she’d assured him. She didn’t fully believe it, but there was nothing else she could hope for. Her arms trembled ferociously, and his were in the same state.

Just before he let go, they made eye contact. _It’s okay_ , he said to her. _I’ll be fine._

On the Normandy, in the here and now, Shepard gritted her teeth and kept working. If she’d been this strong then, she could have saved him. If she could be stronger, she could save others. She looked over at Nihlus, and knew that there was nothing in him that could motivate him like the duct rats kept her going. 

Finally, Nihlus dropped down. He didn’t seem overly tired, but Shepard hit the mat shortly after, making sure to get just one more than him.

“Impressive,” he said.

“You’re...damn…right,” she panted. “Now let’s spar!” she said, laughing, and fell to the floor as she ran out of breath.

Nihlus laughed, and extended a hand to help her up. She took it, gladly, and stumbled as she rose to her feet. She put a hand against his shoulder, using him for support.

“You’re tougher than you look, Commander,” he commended.

“Yeah? Well you’re more fun than you look, Nihley” she replied. “How’s that kind of compliment feel?”

He punched her gently in her shoulder, and she wobbled as though she might fall, until she landed an incredibly weak punch on his. He laughed at her, and she tried to hit him again and missed.

“You should get some rest, Shepard,” he told her.

“ _You_ should get some rest,” she mimicked, sticking her tongue out. 

He shook his head with something oddly kin to a turian smile on his face, and backed away. “You’re correct at that, Shepard. I’ll leave you to your crew.”

Nihlus walked away, and Shepard flopped back down on the mat. Having a nice turian on board was...weird. She wondered how long he’d be on the ship after Eden Prime, and how much getting used to him she’d have to do. She honestly could not decide if she wanted him to stick around longer, or depart after the shake down run. 

The thought brought a smile to her lips. What had he said about her when she mentioned her criminal record? _Interesting_. True words.


	10. Paradise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I now officially have a fanfic longer than the novel I'm working on. Incredible

Shepard woke up to the sharp feeling of entering a mass relay. It was some twenty minutes before she was due to get up, but the heady rush and shift of acceleration that no dampeners in the galaxy could completely deafen stirred her, and she knew there’d be no more sleeping before they were in the appropriate star system.

She hit the showers, and shrugged into her armor. Looking at herself in the mirror, she smirked. Thanks to kinetic buffers, biotic shielding, and the innovations of military fashion, her outfit looked like it was made of opaque saran wrap with the way it hugged her body. There was one good thing to say about it, though--her ass looked fantastic. Well, everybody’s ass looked fantastic in Alliance issue clothing, but she had a nice ass even when she was naked. 

The smirk lingered on her face as she made her way to the CIC, skirting around other soldiers and making faces at Pressly until she stumbled right into Nihlus.

“We meet again!” she said, thumping his shoulder.

“Indeed,” he replied, his brow plates lowered and pulled together.

“You look stressed, Nihley. Can I help?” The offer was made out of genuine wish for his wellbeing, which surprised Nihlus as much as it surprised Shepard.

“I’m on my way to speak with your captain, we can talk more later,” he replied, his expression softening.

She nodded, and continued on her way to pester Joker one last time before going to Eden Prime. She reached down around his shoulders, leaning over the back of the pilot’s seat, as if she was going in for an awkward hug. When she had his attention, she reached up and snatched his hat from his head.

“Hey!” Joker complained, turning toward her.

“Hiya, Joker. What was Nihlus here for?” she asked, putting the hat on her own head.

“He had the compulsion to tell me how to do my job,” he scoffed. “I hate that guy.”

“The man gives you a compliment, so you hate him,” Kaidan replied.

Shepard gave him a look of surprise, and considered asking what the hell Kaidan was doing helping pilot the ship. Instead, she turned her eyes on Joker.

“I don’t mind him. He’s kinda cute,” she said, grinning toothily.

“How could you tell?” Joker asked.

“It’s all about the size of the mandibles.” She winked, and Joker made puking noises.

“Forget I asked, Commander. Ew.” He did an exaggerated shudder of disgust while Shepard guffawed. “But really, you trust that guy?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“He says he’s here to ‘protect the council’s interests’ or some bullshit, but Spectres don’t come out on shake down runs. Something’s up.”

“Maybe he’s not a real Spectre,” Shepard suggested. 

“Well then that’s no reason to trust him!” Joker exclaimed.

“A liar good enough to get past Anderson? Make everyone here believe he’s what he says?” Kaidan mused.

“Maybe not worthy of trust, but mad respect, right?” Shepard said. 

“Do people have a lot of respect for liars where you’re from, Ma’am?” Kaidan asked.

Shepard laughed. “I come from the home of galactic politics, Alenko. Yeah, I’d say they respect liars on the Citadel more than some other places.”

“I didn’t realise--” Kaidan began to stumble over his words, but was thankfully interrupted before he got to say how weird it was that Shepard was born in space.

“Joker, tell Shepard to come meet me,” Anderson’s voice came over the local intercom.

“Can do, Captain. Just a warning, Nihlus is on his way.”

“He’s already here, Joker.”

Joker grimaced, and Kaidan laughed.

Shepard leaned over the chair again, put Joker’s hat back on the appropriate head (though pretty firmly backwards) and finished him off with a good noogie. She flashed the two of them a peace sign, and headed to the back of the CIC. As she walked away, she could hear the two of them continue to talk--

“God, she’s a pain in the ass. Kinda hot though,” came Joker’s voice.

“What? You can’t talk about a commanding officer like that!”

“Yeah, you think she’s hot too.”

Kaidan sputtered without defense for himself, and Shepard smirked to herself as she walked out of hearing range. As she strutted through the bridge, Pressly tried to get her attention, and she waved him off.

“There’s something off about Nihlus, Commander--”

“You think that about every turian, buddy. Hush up,” she said, waving her hands in his general direction as she went into the Comm Room to address her captain and her friend. 

She opened her mouth before entering, fully intending to make some witty comment, but stalled as she saw who was in the room--alone. A comment for Anderson was rapidly replaced with one for Nihlus.

“Shepard,” he said.

"Nihley! Buddy! There’s a theory that you’re a fake Spectre, got any responses to these allegations?” she said, sauntering up with hands on hips.

Something kin to a smile crossed his face. “I thought you might be wondering about me.”

“One might even say that I’m interested,” she replied, her mouth splitting into a grin.

“Do you know what I’m doing on your ship?” he asked. It was as if he hadn’t heard the question, if it weren’t for the soft fluttering of his mandibles. Was it amusement? Or was he, too, interested. 

“I know the official line. This is a shakedown, to see if the ship won’t blow up or get caught with the stealth systems active. You’re here to protect Council interests as a Spectre! Which is not something you brought up when we were getting acquainted but I don’t hold it against you,” she said, her smile not fading. “But I think there’s something specific you’re after that isn’t the Normandy’s stealth drive.”

“Give me your best guess.”

She stepped closer. “Well, I hope it’s me you’re pursuing, but I’d be so embarrassed if that were my ego talking.”

His mandibles fluttered more vigorously for a moment before he controlled his face, and they settled a little more tightly than was natural against his jaw. “What do you know about Eden Prime?”

Disappointing. “Jenkins is from there. Beautiful, quiet, rural, a bit boring. It sounds like no place I’ve ever been.”

“It’s a testament to humanity’s progress. How bold you are, to put colonies on the edge of the Traverse. Miming security when no such thing exists,” he said, stepping away from her and turning his face to avoid her gaze.

“Your words are vague but your meaning’s specific,” Shepard replied, finding that her mouth was suddenly very dry. “What are you trying to tell me?”

She took another step forward to counter his step away, and moved to touch his face, to force him to look at her. The door whirred and opened, and Nihlus dodged her once more, stepping back once more. She dropped her hand, and turned to look at Anderson. 

His face was quizzical, and he knew he’d interrupted something, but he didn’t let it stop him.

“It’s time we let Shepard know what’s really going on here,” Anderson said, nodding at Nihlus.

“You weren’t wrong in your assumptions, Shepard,” Nihlus said, his expression neutral. Official, even. “This is far more than a simple shakedown mission.”

“Is anything ever simple?” she replied. “Tell me what’s going on before I scream, okay? This is getting a little ridiculous.”

“Patience, child,” Anderson said, holding up a hand. “There’s a Prothean Beacon on Eden Prime. You are going to pick it up, keep it safe, and return to the Citadel with it to place it in the Archives.”

Jannali’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and her smile faded slightly. “A beacon? What’s on it? Why is it on Eden Prime? Has anyone activated it yet?” Questions fell like stones from her lips, rapid and heavy. Before Anderson had time to answer, she passed her hand through the air, as if clearing the board so that she could place more pieces. “Why is Nihlus here? If the Alliance is being tasked with this, we should be able to prove we can do a fetch mission without a babysitter.”  
Anderson laughed in the face of her queries, and it took more self control than she would ever admit to stop herself from turning all rage and spitfire at that response. Chain of command was still a shaky concept in her mind, and she knew somewhere deep in her body that she would slap an Admiral one day. But she stilled herself, pulled her posture into something better, and raised a cold eyebrow at the Captain.

“Nihlus isn’t here for the beacon, Shepard,” Anderson said, and went on to his next point, rushed by Shepard opening her mouth to cut in. “He’s here to evaluate you.”

It was Shepard’s turn to laugh. “If by ‘evaluate’ you mean ‘flirt with,’” she said. “What evaluation is a Council Spectre equipped for? He already knows I can do more pull ups, push ups, and I can run way faster than him. Do I get a prize?”

“Is representing humanity not prize enough for you?” Anderson snapped.

“I don’t think I’m suited to be a Council member, Captain. Stop fucking around and tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m going to evaluate and train you to be a Spectre,” Nihlus said, answering where Anderson would not.

For once, she was stunned into silence rather than stunned into speech. She looked between them, back and forth, and was unable to find words. The two men in the room were more satisfied with this result than they’d ever admit, even to each other.

“They don’t make human Spectres, sir,” she said, addressing Anderson. Her posture had changed entirely. Her hands were behind her back, her feet hip-width apart, her shoulders square. She was standing like a soldier. “Especially not out of vent-trash like me.”

“Humanity’s been pushing for a human to become a Spectre. We want to join in on the fold, and we think you’re an excellent pick for the first human Spectre,” Anderson replied.

“Why me?”

“You’re smart, you have initiative, and you know how to come up with a plan. You proved yourself on Celea, and with luck you’ll prove yourself again on Eden Prime.” He smiled. “And, as you’ve said, you can do a hell of a lot of pull ups.”

“It’s why I put your name forward,” Nihlus added.

“Because of the pull ups?” Shepard asked, incredulous.

Nihlus smiled, or did the turian equivalent. Great, when she wasn’t trying to be funny everybody thought she was hilarious. “I didn’t know about your impressive upper body strength when I nominated you, but it’s certainly one of your more appealing features now that I’ve become acquainted with it.”

His compliment brought half of her smile back, and she looked to Anderson. “See what I mean? Flirting.”

“I’ll be accompanying you on this mission, which is the first of many. If you were stupider, I’d tell you that I hadn’t decided on your candidacy yet. Instead, think of it as training. Being a Spectre isn’t easy, and although there aren’t official protocols for working as the arm of the Council, we like to set personal boundaries that I will teach you.”

Her eyes lit up. She didn’t need to reply for them to read her face.

“Captain, a transmission from Eden Prime. Seems to be some sort of distress beacon.” Joker’s voice crackled through the room, and Jannali’s proverbial hackles rose. Something was wrong here.

“Put it on, Joker.”

The video cut out, and Jannali’s heart was beating so quickly she could hardly bear it. She wanted to run, to leap, to shoot at the terrifying ship that had touched down on Eden Prime. She was watching people dying and she was too far away to do anything about it--yet. Her fingers twitched for the gun on her back but she did not reach. Anderson was in charge. He would have a plan.

Moments later they were on a shuttle--Anderson, Nihlus, Alenko, and Jenkins, who had hardly a ground mission under his name. Wind whipped past their heads as the doors to the shuttle opened but they had not yet come close to landing. Anderson barked orders at her, and Nihlus was silent. 

“I’m faster on my own,” Nihlus had said.

“I’m faster on rollerskates, but that isn’t exactly practical right now,” she roared over the wind. “How the fuck are you going to observe me if I’m not with you, Nihley?”

He might have smiled, but she wasn’t sure. “This beacon is more important than you. We’ll be working together soon, Shepard.”

“Alright, but if we’re working together you can call me by my first name!” she told him, grinning from underneath her helmet.

“I might just do that,” he told her, and he left.

A death, not long after she hit the ground. Once the drones were finished, she fell to her knees, and checked Jenkins’ pulse. Yes, his chest was ripped to shreds and blood was leading through his hardsuit into the fertile soil of Eden Prime, but she checked. A quavery sigh shook loose from her mouth, and Alenko touched her shoulder.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, ma’am.”

“Colony kids. They get buried when they die, don’t they?” she asked. Her voice was shallow and dry. 

“Yes ma’am.”

“Make sure we arrange a burial for him. As soon as we’re done here.” She stood, slowly, and looked around. It was beautiful. “It’s good, though, that he died here. He got to come home.”

Standing over Jenkins, she looked at the sky for a moment. There were birds, and trees, and clouds streaked across the sky that was just the right shade of blue. It was too open, too dirty, and too quiet to be her home, but it belonged to Jenkins and it made him happy, despite this dissatisfaction that he expressed. Eden Prime belonged to Jenkins, and Jenkins belonged to Eden Prime.

If she was lucky, she’d die on the Citadel one day.

She moved on, like she always did when one of hers died. She had to. His name would remain deep inside her bones and before she died she’d make sure someone else knew him and knew his name so that he could never actually die. It was the Rat way to mourn but it was the only way she knew how. She would have to learn his first name.

One foot in front of the other lead to Ashley Williams, whose imminent death kicked Shepard out of the despair she felt from losing someone who depended upon her. Ashley Williams, Gunnery Chief, began depending on her before the conversation was through, and such was the way of things. 

‘There’s always more Rats.’ A C-Sec officer had said that once, disparagingly. Jannali took it as a compliment. Ashley was one of hers, now, even if it was only for a little while, and she was proud to have her.

“Those were geth, ma’am,” Ashley said, and Shepard had to stop and think.

“Bullshit,” she decided. “Geth haven’t been outside what was originally quarian space in...what, 300 years?”

“They’ve got flashlights for heads, ma’am. I don’t think anybody would be stupid enough to copy a geth’s design for any old VI. Not to mention standard VIs don’t attack entire colonies,” Ashley replied, her lips curling in distaste.

“Why do you know what a geth looks--No, nevermind. We’ve got a date with a turian with a superiority complex. He’s meeting us at a Prothean beacon, ring any bells?” 

“Do you know any turians who don’t have a superiority complex, ma’am?” Alenko asked.

Ashley Williams lead the lieutenant and the commander through what had been a research center, and then to a tram station.

Two deaths on Eden Prime. She knelt over Nihlus, whose face had been ruined by the shot through his head, and she didn’t allow herself to weep for the loss of a friendship that had yet to blossom. She noted with idle fascination that the splintering of his hard shell of a face was very different from when a human had been shot in the head. It wasn’t fleshy. Even the blood seemed less gruesome than a human’s bulletwound. He was dead, despite how underwhelming his death might seem from a clinical examination, and she was miserable for it.

This was not his home, she knew. She didn’t know exactly where his home was, what or where belonged to him, but she knew that this was not it. He ought to have been somewhere silver when he died. If not that, he should have at least died with his gun in his hand. She touched his face, briefly, and pulled her hand away before her squad could comment.

Eden Prime took two men from her, and for that she would never forgive this paradise.


	11. Little Shepherd

Wet teeth in an alien mouth--one she had never seen. Gears twisting in rust, in blood. An image of a scream, universal. A sun, a light, arms reaching to the sky and being obliterated. A sensation of pain, universal. Chaos. Death. Universal. There was no end, and eternity was soaked in red.

“Doctor? Doctor Chakwas, I think she’s waking up.” A familiar voice, surrounded by unfamiliar pain. 

Shepard sat up, feeling a sorrow she’d never felt before. As though everyone she had ever known was lost to hope, lost to trying to help. She felt as though some great attempt had failed, but she had no words for this feeling. It faded as she got to be more and more vertical, until it was nothing but a dull headache.

“You had us worried there, Shepard. How are you feeling?” Chakwas asked, coming over to check on the girl who had stepped into something bigger than she could imagine.

“Wobbly but fine,” she said, shrugging off the mystery emotion. “I could use a glass of water. How long was I out?”

“About fifteen hours, give or take. What happened down there?” Chakwas asked, her eyes narrow but forgiving. “Was it the beacon?”

Shepard laughed, and it hurt her head. “Was everybody else informed about this beacon before me, or was it the worst kept secret on the Normandy and I just never caught wise until the last moment?” she said.

“It was my fault,” Alenko said.

“You knew about the beacon before we touched down? Ah, well I wouldn’t blame you for not--” Shepard began, deflecting his apology before it could begin.

“No. About what happened down there,” Kaidan interrupted. Shepard grimaced. “I triggered some kind of security field and you had to push me out of the way.” He crossed his arms, ready for reprimand.

“So you knew that getting too close with it would...would knock me out for a few hours and intentionally lured me to it in the hopes that you could call the Normandy in distress after I reported the mission complete?” she asked, eyebrows raised but mouth flat.

“No ma’am, I--”

“Then it wasn’t your fault, lieutenant. Next time, keep a safe distance from creepy glowing Prothean junk unless it’s a live Prothean wanting to do creepy glowing bedroom stuff and that’s what you’re into,” she said, turning back to Chakwas. As a result, she missed Kaidan’s gentle smile.

“It’s unlikely that what you encountered down there was anything bedroom related. In fact, it’s unknown whether or not that’s what set the beacon off. Unfortunately, we’ll never get to find out,” Chakwas said, beginning to glance at the datapad with Shepard’s medical file on it.

“You’re kidding me,” Shepard snapped. “Jenkins and Nihlus...they died for nothing? For me to come away with a headache, fifteen hours later? We got nothing?!” Her voice cracked on the last word, and Kaidan tried to put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. “It might be worth losing those lives if we gained some wisdom from it. If something...came out of that beacon and changed the galaxy. If what you’re telling me is true, and that thing is a dud…” Her hands clenched into fists and she put them in her lap, holding her breath until she could calm down.

“It exploded,” Kaidan said, and he opened his mouth as if more words were going to come out, but he stalled at the sight of Shepard’s distress.

“It may not have been a dud,” Chakwas cut in. “Nothing physically changed about you except what one might expect from the blowback of an explosion. But there are signs of unusual beta waves, and REM movement. If this beacon was meant to communicate something…”

“Then maybe Shepard got the message!” Kaidan exclaimed.

“What did you see?” Chakwas pushed on.

Shepard breathed again. Big, deep, belly breaths that allowed her not to scream. She remembered being a kid, in a vent above a place where no one ever went. She would go there to shriek her head off where nobody would hear her and it was the only thing that got her through the night sometimes when rats had died and she had lived. 

She’d never even seen a doctor before joining the Alliance. She breathed. It must be normal for dreams, visions...whatever it was that plagued her before she woke up in the med bay. Perhaps they had a viable concern for her health, and this dream wasn’t the only thing that would come out of Nihlus and Jenkins’ death. It couldn’t be that.

“I...it was a nightmare of some kind. Nothing coherent. A lot of death,” she said.

Shepard looked away from Chakwas and Kaidan to avoid seeing the disappointment in their faces.

When Anderson told her the plan to get the one responsible for Nihlus and Jenkins no longer being on the Normandy, she could only imagine the disappointment in the Council’s eyes. A bad dream as the last message from the Protheans, for which an Alliance soldier and a Council Spectre lost their lives. 

And yet she lived.

She resolved she would do something with this life that had somehow been spared, even if it meant taking down a Spectre with no more resources than she could carry in her pockets.

When they arrived at the Citadel, Shepard leapt and bounded off the ship, tumbling into the docking bay with all the energy of several wild kakliosaurs. As soon as she was breathing the processed, exactly perfect temperature oxygen-nitrogen mix that marked her home, she felt better than she had since touching down on Eden Prime. She looked straight up with a grin, spotting the vent that was probably 80 or 90 feet above her. A dead fall if she’d ever seen one, but she knew that watching ships come in and out is one of the best entertainments to a child who has never owned a TV.

“What are you looking at, ma’am?” Kaidan asked.

She pointed up. “An old hangout of mine.”

They were shuttled to the embassy post haste and it was all Shepard could do to stop herself from interrupting Udina as he was on the vid-call with the Council.

Udina transferred his ire from the Councillors, who were not inclined to listen to him, to Anderson in whiplash speeds.

“Saren was their top agent. They don’t like him being accused of treason,” Udina said, poison in every breath. His furious glare went from Anderson to Shepard, who reflected it back twofold.

“They should be glad there’s somebody out there that still isn’t afraid of Spectres,” she snapped. “What kindof bullshit institution raises people up to have no higher authority?”

“Settle down, Shepard. You’ve more than jeopardized your chances of Spectre candidacy with your actions on Eden Prime,” Udina replied. “The mission was a chance to show that you could get things done. Instead, Nihlus is dead and the beacon is destroyed.”

“Yes, because calling out the corruption of a truly powerful agency is indicative of...what, feistiness? Eat my ass, Udina!” 

“The mission failing on Eden Prime was no fault of hers,” Anderson added, making no attempt to cover for her insults. “Saren bungled the mission for us. It’s kindof his thing.”

“You’d better hope this C-Sec investigation turns up anything to substantiate our claims or,” he turned to Shepard, “being barred from the Spectres will be the least of your concerns. Anderson, you and I have some things to go over before this hearing.”

“You three can meet us at the Citadel Tower when it’s time,” Anderson said, not breaking off his glare at Udina. “The Ambassador will make sure you have clearance.”

The two men who had somehow become representative of the entire human race left the room, leaving Shepard and her team to their own devices for a solid hour before the hearing. 

“And that is why I hate politicians,” Ashley said, a rare smile coming onto her face. “You, ma’am, just earned a lot of my respect, though.”

“Thanks, Ash,” Shepard said, rubbing at the back of her neck.

“You probably oughta cool down next time you talk to the Council, though,” Kaidan cut in. “If you treat them like that, they’re probably not gonna be amenable to our cause. Ma’am.”

Shepard laughed. “You’re probably right. Fortunately, Udina is basically useless as far as persuading the Council of anything, so I don’t have to worry about him.”

She shrugged, and beckoned that the two should follow her. It was their first time on the Citadel, one of them had mentioned, and she knew for a fact that she was the best Citadel tour guide in the galaxy. She was certain that she could show them things that they would never see in a human’s average lifetime otherwise...but which would they appreciate the most?

Marching across the bridge toward the Financial District, she waved cheerfully at Avina in good humour.

“What’s that?” Ashley asked. Shepard smiled at her, wondering at how curious the gunnery chief was, for a brawn-for-brains soldier type. Perhaps Ashley Williams was more than met the eye, but she wouldn’t judge based on a single query.

“My mom,” Jannali replied, grinning wider.

They passed the statue of the Prothean Monument, and Shepard felt that familiar tug and tingle of the old art piece. She glanced behind her to see how her crew reacted, and was pleased to note the interested gaze of Ashley’s, and the fact that Kaidan was sucking on his teeth curiously. Well, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the upper crust of Alliance talent was smarter than some nine year old Rats. Still, she was satisfied.

She thought about pausing and paying homage to the old thing, which was the one piece of art in the entire Citadel that she respected too much to climb on it. The odd sensations generated by getting too close made it feel dangerous somehow, and the fact that it was surrounded by deep water didn’t help much. It wasn’t purely the danger of scaling the Prothean Monument that kept her from it, however. She liked it too much--not to say that she didn’t grow to like things purely because they were dangerous. It was something that was older than the rest of the buildings, statues, and people on the Citadel. It was more intrinsically part of her home than she herself was.

Instead of pausing, she kept moving. Any Citadel tour guide equipped with tram and megaphone could show people the Monument. There was even a copy of Avina nearby that was equipped to speculate on its origins. Shepard could do better, and if she could, she would.

Her destination was the Consort, and when Ashley and Kaidan realised where they were, they exchanged panicked glances. Shepard pretended not to notice.

She breezed past a greeter, who squeaked in alarm when three heavily armed humans stepped into the building without any regard to reservation or waiting list. Shepard waved her off, calling for her old friend.

“Excuse me, ma’am, could you please come back to the entrance and we can discuss your placement on the waiting list,” Nelyna said, panic not very well hidden in her voice.

Shepard looked back at the nervous blue lady, and smiled reassuringly. The smile didn’t seem to work, and in fact as soon as it crossed her face, Nelyna began to wring her hands.

“How long have you worked here?” Shepard asked, clapping her on the back.

“Over three years, and I can assure you that--” she began, but was cut off by Sha’ira herself leaving her chambers to look out upon the chaos that had sprung up in the wake of Shepard’s entry.

The Consort walked down the short steps, a peaceful smile on her gentle face. She made a point of touching the shoulder of a newer acolyte to comfort her before coming before Shepard.

“You’ve grown,” Sha’ira said. Her voice was like a cool breeze through the room. Even panicky Nelyna seemed eased.

The soldier and the consort pulled one another into a tight, familiar hug, and Sha’ira held Shepard at arm’s length to regard her.

“It’s been years since you’ve come to see me in person, little Shepherd,” she said.

“The kids still come, right? And this young little thing isn’t stopping them?” Shepard asked urgently. “I don’t know another place so ready with sandwiches and baths.”

Sha’ira laughed. “They visit. Not as often as I would like, nor as often as you would, I’m certain. I worry for them, without your guidance.” She sighed. “It is almost lonely without them.”

Shepard smiled, despite herself. She was worried about her Rats, to be sure, but she was so flattered by Sha’ira’s words she couldn’t help herself.

She backed away from the consort, and gestured toward Ashley and Kaidan. The two soldiers were dumb-struck in the face of Sha’ira’s fame. Even Ashley, posted planet-side most of her career, had heard gossip about the Consort--not all of it very savory. 

“These are some of my new followers,” Shepard explained. “They’re better fed than most of the Rats, I’d say, and pretty clean.”

“We could always run the showers for you if you needed,” Sha’ira said, smiling. “For old time’s sake, if nothing else.”

Sha’ira lead the group back to her private chambers, where they would be less of a disruption to the rest of the clients who had either smaller wallets or reserves of patience and could not be bothered to get in to see The Consort (the proper noun). These were generally the type that would be made uncomfortable by the gang of dirty children running through the lobby with muddy feet and missing teeth. As such, she discouraged the attendance of any souls lacking in compassion, and her business hopefully remained pure--frequented only by those with genuine empathy. 

Shepard made herself comfortable on Sha’ira’s loveseat, while the others stood at parade rest.

“It’s been a long time, Sheery,” Shepard said.

“Sheery?” Ashley repeated, laughing incredulously.

“When our little Shepherd was a child, she either could not or refused to pronounce my name,” Sha’ira explained. “In time it became either a display of disdain for authority, in order to impress her herd of children, or a genuine affectionate nickname.”

“I’m sorry, but I’d like to get this straight,” Kaidan began. “You knew the Consort as a kid? I heard you grew up on the Citadel, but this seems a little bit out of the realm of the ordinary.”

“Our mutual friend has never been ordinary,” Sha’ira said. “I’m surprised you haven’t found that out already.”

“Maybe I see your point,” Kaidan replied.

“Actually, little one, I may have need of your exceptional talents,” Sha’ira said, turning toward Shepard. Shepard looked surprised, but nodded that Sha’ira should continue. “There is a turian, a former client of mine, who misunderstood the nature of our working relationship. He has been spreading rumours about me--”

“Do you want me to kill him?” Shepard asked, sounding honestly shocked. “I mean, you know I’d do anything for you after all these years but that seems--”

“A little extreme, no doubt. I trust you’ll be able to reason with Septimus. Despite his current state of emotional compromise, he is an intelligent man. You have a way with people, and it makes more sense to have this dealt with within the family rather than appealing to a stranger for assistance.”

Shepard thought about it for a moment, and then nodded firmly. “I’ve got your back, Sheery. I’ll tell the kids, when I run into them, that you’re still a viable source of sandwiches.”

Sha’ira laughed. “I’m not sure how you’ll talk them into baths without your usual use of force. Good luck, little Shepherd.”

And Shepard marched off, trailing two soldiers who felt that they knew more now about the Commander than they ever hoped, glad to have been called a shepherd. Her flock was smaller now, and much more heavily armed, but she had not dropped her crook in favor of a pistol. These soldiers might not need to be bullied into baths and meals, but they followed her nonetheless.

Despite what Sha’ira called her, Shepard felt like a big shepherd, now. Long gone were the days when being the biggest, the baddest, the one who knew swear words and how to steal money from bank terminals was enough. This time, she’d have to inspire them with her skills, her brain, and her combat ability. She steeled herself with a grin as she walked--no flock was too much for Jannali the Shepherd to handle.


End file.
